I got used working with Civil 3D to try to have backup of my files as I work on a project, based on the idea that if I have to make a major change in the design, especially in grading, I would want to have a file to revert to if necessary. I mention grading since I noticed for a while that this is a delicate subject for Civil 3D and I have to be careful in the workflow with the grading objects, otherwise I will end up with a corrupt behind any recognition dwg. So if I would have file versioning, then I would not have issues going back to a previous version of the file.
Now I know that it would be nice to have the Autodesk Vault with all its features and file versioning would not be an issue then. Or I could rely on the VSS to have a snapshot of the file every so often. But this does not help me too much since it is limited. So how can I solve the issue and not pay anything out my pocket?
The answer is called Autover. As it is described “ AutoVer is a configurable automatic or real time backup and personal versioning system. It can be used as a simple real time backup or as a more complex, but transparent version control system”. What is nice about it is that it is a freeware and it works wonderfully.
Autover relies on the opensource WinMerge to compare the files and this needs to be installed prior to installing of Autover. So once you install Winmerge and Autover the setup is easy. All you need is to define a watcher folder and setup its settings ( how often to check the new file version, where to keep the copy of the versions and more) and you are ready to go. Also make sure you setup the right exe file for the CompareApp in the application’s settings.
Since I did not get to post any setup screenshots, feel free to drop me a line if you try it and have any issues setting it.
Looks interesting – but how do you tell it to look at dwg files only??
You can set the mask for the files that you want in specific.